Hi all,
A simple question. I am trying to “slightly” flatten a sphere. To do this, I assume the best way of doing this is to scale it down slightly in the direction of the sphere’s vertical axis.
Only problem is, I can’t work out how to do it. Can someone tell me how to do this ? … I would like to be able to do it without losing the smoothness of the object, and also I don’t want to change the number of polygons.
Any help appreciated.
thanks,
Andrew
The deformers can do that sort of thing for you. There’s a flatten deformer, for instance that will flatten an object along a specified axis.
Try this. Drop a 3d sphere, go into edit mode, open the deformers menu under the tools pallete. Find the flatten slider. You’ll see teeny tiny xyz in the upper right of the slider. Turn off all but on axis by clicking on the xyz and then adjust the slider and you’ll see it flatten along one axis, you can also do it along all three axis if you want to hit the whole thing.
There’s also a sphereize slider, which might work for you if you adjust it in the negative direction.
edit Or maybe the sphereize flatten deformer might do what you want.
Have fun.
Thanks, Bill.
I have already tried the flatten slider. It did not quite achieve what I wanted, because it left me with a sharp edge around where the flattening was.
I also tried the sphereize slider, but it didn’t seem to achieve anything (I set it in the x-direction and slid it in a negative direction).
Perhaps I can re-phrase it better if I say that I want to turn the sphere into an ellipsoid - this way it’s nice and smooth (as opposed to using the flatten slider).
…and to put a spanner in the works, how can I make this smooth deformation from sphere to ellipsoid only from the top (and not the bottom) ??
regards,
Andrew
Use the Size deformation. The deformation axis values match the current Tool>Preview view. So Z will be the axis that faces directly toward the camera in the small prview window.
To only size one half of the model, mask the other other half first.
Thanks aurick,
The problem with masking is that when you paint the mask over one side of the sphere, you get a sharp edge between the masked and the non-masked portions of the object. This results in a sharp ledge at this boundary when you use the Size deformation slider.
Is it possible to have a smooth gradient from unmasked to masked (thereby giving a smooth result when you re-size the object) ?
regards,
Andrew
Actually, you can.
When you drag a mask out onto your model it uses the current alpha. One of the available alphas is a gradient. Just rotate it so that it faces the direction you want, then drag your mask out onto the model. You’ll get a nice gradiation in your mask. If necessary, you might want to reapply the mask a few times to strengthen it.
Anyway, the result will be a nice, soft transition in your deformation.
Thanks, aurick. That has worked well for me.